Lots and lots of photos here! It's party time!

Hello all! Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Mine went by way too quickly this weekend. Yesterday was the birthday celebration for my grandfather and niece (and my cousin too!) and today I was really tired and didn't feel 100% so I took it easy, uploaded some photos and took a nap and I am still not feeling perferct but I think it was just being so busy yesterday. Back to work tomorrow so I better feel ok!!!

Back to the goodies-photos of course! Yesterday we celebrated my grandfather's 85th birthday and my niece's 8th birthday along with my cousin's birthday too (Which was DEcember.) It's also when me and my cousin exchange christmas stockings and her kids get their gifts from me. It is always a fun time and the biggest gathering of the family each year. Last year we brought back the tradition of taking a family photo of everyone who is in attendance. This year Ben and I were there along with my cousin and her kids, my siter and her kids, my grandfather, my dad and his wife. Ben's cousin stopped in to give Tara gift and we got him to stay for dinner as well. It was weird without my brother there and my other cousin and his wife and their daughter were not there either although I don't know that we could have handled another child-there were so many!!!LOL

It was a long night but a good one. Had dinner that my grandfather made, then dessert, gift openings and then we talked to my brother on the computer for a little bit. I was annoyed because I could not get my laptop to connect to my grandfather's internet for some reason which was really weird and annoying but we just used my grandfathers computer instead. The only problem with that is something always seems to happen with his video cam, and I think I just need to update the software but we were already running late to meet Shaun online I didn't want to mess with it. We were not able to see him but he was able to see us and he got to see the new baby and how big all the other kids got. We could hear him and talk to him and Dylan had quite a kick out of hearing shaun through the computer but not seeing him. It was so funny. After that, it was late and so we all pretty much packed up headed home. It was a long day but full of excitement. There were so many kids there we were almost out numbered! It is funny to think that just two years ago there were only two (Tara and Dylan) and now there are 5 (technically 6 but one wasn't there!) It seemed like everytime we turned around there was a little kid at our feet. The good thing was that Dylan is old enough now to be able to play with Tara and she has no problem playing with younger kids. They were playing and occuping themselves pretty good. Peyton just sort of wanders around and follows them, stays pretty quite and if Dylan isn't in sight then mom is! Luke, has no care in the world and just walks around playing by himself although he does seem to have a knack for throwing things onto the ground. He is all boy and just sort of gets into anything he can and climbs up on EVERYTHING he can. At one point he was standing on a chair at the table, reaching for something and as he did that, the chair moved out from under his feet and I looked over at the right moment and grabbed him before he tried to put his feet back on the chair that wasn't there. It was all quite comical actually and I am convinced he would have just fallen down, laughed and gotten back up again! And Samantha, she pretty much slept or ate the whole time!

Here are some photos from the party:

Newest addition to the family, sleeping soundly-Samantha:


Dylan and his "air guitar"

Tara and Peyton

Tara playing "shutterbug" again. I let her shoot some photos for fun:
(My dad is the one making the silly face!)








Here is Tara and Josh when he came by with gift for her. He is just like another uncle to her-and she adores him as much as he adores her!

Josh and Tara

All the kids on the couch-quite a cute bunch if you ask me!


This is probably the best "family shot" we could get which sort of sucked b/c we couldn't really see Dylan in any but his head shows in this one!


And this is grandpa with all the kids who were there.


We also started the old tradition of marking the height of the kids on the doorway to the kitchen, "the next generation" and we started on a new wall:) It was cute to see them all standing up against the wall for their markings!



Luke and my dad aka "grandpop"



Dylan laughing at the computer


Here is Dylan and Tara having fun with Ben. They decided it was fun to clapse onto ben's legs and have him walk around the room. They had quite a good time!


Me and my cousin Laura


Cake Time!





It's all about the icing!




There was this moment where Peyton and my grandfather were "playing" and she was laughing at him-I just thought they were cute.



Present Time!


I loved watching Luke open his gift from Laura. I was glad she had something for him b/c all I had for him was a small stuffed alligator and I knew the other kids would all be opening things. He was SOO excited and happy when he opened his gift and saw it was a truck. It was a priceless moment.







I got my grandfather a creme brulee kit b/c he loves desserts and trying to make new things but I think he liked the torch best!


Like I said...all boy!


And my dad got my grandfather a book on Ebay. I think he will be interested in selling stuff-he asked me about it before and said one of these days he wanted to check it out. Hopefully with the book he can do some reading then we can check it out:)


Laura and I opening our stockings:
(A LOT of my stuff was from her work, all the "goodies" they have to give out.This bag is one of my gifts [i love bags!] and what was funny was when i saw it in the hallway, i meant to tell her it was nice and then when it was gift time I realized it was for me!)



One of Laura's gifts from my work!


And my gift to laura, Peanut Butter! Its a joke between us from YEARS ago-we were in hysterics and everyone else thought we were crazy.


I think that is enough eye candy for tonight. I also took photos of Dylan and Peyton by themselves to try and get a good brother-sister dressed up photo and I will make a post with those photos later. For now, I say good night!